In Their Own Words: What Students Learn Outside the Classroom

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1993 30: 277Am Educ Res JGeorge D. Kuh

In Their Own Words: What Students Learn Outside the Classroom

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American Educational Research Journal Summer 1993, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 277-304

In Their Own Words: What Students Learn Outside the Classroom

George D. Kuh Indiana University

In most college impact models, student and institutional characteristics have substantial effects on student learning (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991). The purpose of this study was to discover the impact of out-of-class experiences on outcomes of college attendance considered important by students. From interviews with 149 seniors at 12 colleges and universities, 14 categories of learning and personal development were distilled. These categories subsequently were reduced to five outcome domains: Personal Competence, Cognitive Complexity, Knowledge and Academic Skills, Practical Competence, and Altruism and Estheticism. Contrary to the literature on college impact, student background characteristics were not related to differences in outcomes; however, students attending small, private colleges with liberal arts missions more frequently reported changes in Cognitive Complexity, Knowledge and Academic Skills, and Altruism and Estheticism.

GEORGE D. KUH is a Professor of Higher Education at the Center for Postsecondary Research and Planning in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in the School of Education at Indiana University, 7th and Rose Ave., Room 4258, Bloom-ington, IN 47405. His specializations are college students, campus cultures, and student learning outside the classroom.

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Kuh

I've learned a lot about a lot of things... I care more about how I interact with other people. That is, I care about helping people learn and sharing my ideas with others. I definitely feel more confident in conveying what I have to say. I can express myself better. . .An important part of what I've done [is] the classes and seeing how things connect and seeing how things work in an in-depth way. (Earlham College senior)

Assessments of student learning in college usually focus on academic aspects of the undergraduate experience—the classroom, laboratory, studio, and

library. Transcripts and test scores, however, reflect only a fraction of how students change (Light, 1992). Wilson (1966), for example, estimated that more than 70% of what students learn during college results from out-of-class experiences. According to Moffatt (1989):

For about 40% of students, the do-it-yourself side of college [what took place outside the classroom] was the most significant educational experience. And for all but 10%, extracurricular learning had been at least half of what had contributed to their maturation so far in college (p. 58).

Other scholars also have linked many of the benefits of attending college to out-of-class activities and experiences (Astin, 1977; Bowen, 1977; Boyer, 1987; Chickering, 1969; Feldman & Newcomb, 1969; Pace, 1979, 1990; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991; Thomas & Chickering, 1984). These benefits include", among other things, gains in confidence, self-esteem, and altruistic values (Astin & Kent, 1983; Pascarella, Ethington, & Smart, 1988). Out-of-class experiences that contribute to these and other aspects of student learning and personal development include conversations with faculty after class and collaboration in research and teaching projects, living in a residence hall, working on or off campus, participating in institutional governance, involvement in clubs and organizations, and voluntarism.

For the most part, the research methods used to assess the impact of college have been quantitative and positivistic (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991). Such methods require that researchers determine both the questions to be asked and the response categories. Attinasi (1992) argued that "progress in understanding college student outcomes. . . has been retarded by our failure to adequately take into consideration the meanings that the phenomenon of going to college holds for students" (p. 68). This view holds that it is impossible to understand the human experience without taking into account the complicated, mutually shaping events, actions, and motivations of the individual or group under study. According to Bogdan and Biklen (1982), "people act, not on the basis of predetermined responses to predefined objects, but rather as interpreting, defining, symbolic animals whose behavior can only be understood by having the researcher enter into the defining process" (p. 38). Attinasi (1992) recommended use of "phenomenological interviews" whereby the inquirer gains access to the meanings individuals attach to their own experience using a semistructured interview guide.

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There is a tradition of using qualitative research methods (e.g., phenomeno-logical interviews) to discover what happens to students during college (Freed-man, 1967; Madison, 1969; White, 1966). Several such inquiries culminated in popular, widely-used theories of college student development (i.e., Chickering, 1969; Kohlberg, 1984; Perry, 1970). However, the bulk of qualitative research about college students was conducted 25 years ago with traditional-age (18-22) students enrolled full time who lived on campus. Today, only about one sixth of undergraduate students fit that description (Levine, 1989). As Pascarella and Terenzini (1991) concluded, "specifying the effects of college for the vast numbers of non-traditional students. . . may be the single most important area of research on college impacts in the next decade" (p. 632). Through the use of interviews, we may be able to discover those aspects of college considered important by students whose frames of reference were not taken into account when many of the current research instruments and models of college impact were developed.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to discover, by asking undergraduates to reflect on their college years, the impact of out-of-class experiences on their learning and personal development. Three research questions guided the study: (a) What did students learn from their experiences outside the classroom? (b) In what ways have they changed since starting college? and (c) Do the outcomes considered by students to be important differ by type of institution attended and student background characteristics?

Although seniors from multiple institutions participated, this study did not seek to obtain generalizable results. Rather, the purpose was to generate an accurate and trustworthy picture of the perceptions and experiences of learning and personal development of undergraduates as told by the students themselves. As we shall see, most students found it difficult to bifurcate their college experience into two separate categories of learning; that is, one linked to experiences outside the classroom and the other a function of the formal curriculum.

Conceptual Framework

According to Pascarella and Terenzini (1991), studies of what happens to students during college follow one of two general approaches: developmental and college impact.

Developmental Approaches

The vast majority of theory-driven research on change during the college years is developmental (Kuh & Stage, 1992). Inquiries grounded in this perspective emphasize discrete periods or stages of development that are presumed to emerge in an orderly and hierarchical manner. Developmental models are heavily influenced by psychological theory; therefore, intrapersonal dynamics are considered to be more important to development than the environment. Some developmental theories focus on the content of the changes in cognitive, affective, and behavioral domains (e.g., psychosocial, typological) that occur

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during college while others describe the processes (cognitive-structural, person-environment interaction) by which these changes take place (Kuh & Stage, 1992; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991; Rodgers, 1989).

An example of the latter is Baxter Magolda's (1992) study of cocurricular influences on intellectual development. Using the Epistemological Reflection model, Baxter Magolda found that students' ways of knowing, or epistemologies, influenced their interpretations of the importance of out-of-class experiences. For example, when asked to talk about important aspects of the collegiate experience, absolute knowers (i.e., students who assume knowledge is certain) tended to talk about how they had to "adjust" to college life (e.g., take more responsibility for their own affairs); transitional knowers described the importance of peers to learning how to function effectively in the college environment; and independent knowers talked of how they "discovered their own voices" (Baxter Magolda, 1992, p. 211) through dealing with people different from themselves.

College Impact Approaches

The study reported in this paper uses the college impact approach to discover outcomes that college students associated with out-of-class experiences. To account for learning and personal development, college impact models emphasize interactions between students and the institution's environments (broadly conceived). For example, in Pascarella's (1985) model, outcomes (learning and cognitive development) are a function of reciprocal influences among the structural and organizational characteristics of the institution (e.g., enrollment, control, selectivity, affluence), student background characteristics (e.g., sex, aspirations, aptitude, ethnicity), the perceptual and behavioral environments created by interactions with peers and institutional agents (e.g., faculty seem friendly and helpful, peers are competitive), and the "quality" of effort (i.e., time and energy) students invest in educationally purposeful activities.

Various outcome taxonomies have been developed to account for changes that occur during college (Astin, 1973; Bowen, 1977; Lenning, 1976; Micek, Service, & Lee, 1975). These taxonomies typically encompass two types of outcomes, affective and cognitive, which can be assessed using either psychological instruments or observations and reports of behavior, or both. (Astin, 1977; Kuh, Krehbiel, & MacKay, 1988; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991). An example of an affective outcome is enhanced aesthetic awareness, which could be assessed psychometrically, such as with the estheticism scale of the Omnibus Personality Inventory (Heist & Yonge, 1968). A behavioral measure of aesthetic awareness could be observations or self-report information about frequency of participation in cultural events.

The most comprehensive synthesis of college outcomes is Pascarella and Terenzini's (1991) review of 2,600 studies. They divided affective and cognitive outcomes into nine domains: knowledge and subject matter competence, cognitive skills and intellectual growth, psychosocial changes, attitudes and values, moral development, educational attainment, career choice and development, economic benefits, and quality of life after college. Pascarella and Terenzini

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In Their Own Words

found that, in general, college attendance typically was associated with "net" and "long-term effects" for each of the domains. Net effects are changes due to attending college, as contrasted with changes resulting from maturation or experiences other than college. Long-term effects refer to whether the changes that occur during college persist after college.

Research conducted using the college impact approach reflects aggregated group effects. Although not every student changes on every domain, on average, college attendance is associated with modest gains in verbal and quantitative skills, substantial gains in knowledge (particularly in the major), and increased cognitive complexity; greater social maturation, personal competence, and freedom from irrational prejudice; increases in appreciation for the aesthetic qualities of life; clarification of religious views; substantial gains in personal autonomy and nonauthoritarianism; and modest decreases in political naivete and dogmatism. Also, college students become more introspective and more aware of their own interests, values, and aspirations. The crystallization of these diverse aspects of personality functioning into a sense of identity is one of the most important outcomes of college (Bowen, 1977; Chickering, 1969; Feldman & Newcomb, 1969; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991). Equally important, the college experience leaves a "residue" (Bowen, 1977) manifested as an openness to new information and ideas, a facility for meeting and dealing with a wide variety of persons, and a practical sense of competence and confidence that enables a college-educated person to successfully cope with novel situations and problems.

Methods

To determine the impact of out-of-class experiences on student learning and personal development, seniors were interviewed from 12 institutions in different regions of the continental United States.

Participants

Participants were students classified as seniors at the following institutions: Berea College, Earlham College, Grinnell College, Iowa State University, Miami University of Ohio, Mount Holyoke College, Stanford University, The Evergreen State College, University of California, Davis, University of Louisville, Wichita State University, and Xavier University of Louisiana. These institutions were selected because they were known to provide rich out-of-class learning and personal development opportunities for their students (Kuh et al., 1991). Each institution was visited twice by a team of two to four investigators; the interviews with students on which this study is based were conducted during the second visits to these colleges.1

The institutional contact (typically someone designated by the chief student affairs officer) was asked to identify 10 to 12 seniors who, as a group, reflected a range of involvement in various aspects of the undergraduate experience. For example, we asked that no more than half the students selected for interviews be a highly visible student leader (e.g., editor of the student newspaper, varsity athlete, president of a social organization); the remainder, then, would likely be more typical of undergraduates at that institution in their level

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of campus involvement. We also requested that several students from historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups be invited to participate. For the two metropolitan colleges, Louisville and Wichita State, a proportionate number of older, part-time, and commuting students were represented.

Problems related to scheduling and other vagaries (e.g., some students did not show up at the appointed hour) resulted in fewer than 10 students being interviewed at some institutions (i.e., Iowa State = 7; Xavier = 7; UC Davis = 9). Because members of the research team were employed at two of the institutions, they were able to conduct some interviews beyond the target number of 10. As a result, 28 students from Stanford University and 18 students from Wichita State University are included among the respondents.

In all, 149 seniors were interviewed: 69 men, 80 women; 101 whites, 30 African Americans, 6 Hispanics, 6 Asian Americans, and 6 international students; 129 students of traditional age (18-23) and 20 older than 23 years of age. Even though the numbers of students from most of the institutions are relatively small, as a group the participants reflect the diversity that characterizes undergraduate students enrolled in institutions of higher education in the United States.

Data Collection

A semistructured interview protocol was developed for this study and was field-tested during the first campus visit during the fall of 1988. The protocol subsequently was reduced to four general probes designed to elicit the most important things that the respondent learned during college—about oneself, others, interpersonal relations, cultural differences, academics, and so on—rather than the interviewer suggesting specific categories of outcomes. The four probes were: (a) Why did you choose to attend this college and in what ways has it been what you expected? (b) What are the most significant experiences you had here? (c) What are the major highlights of your time here? Low points? High points? Surprises? Disappointments? and (d) How are you different now than when you started college?

Interviews were conducted between January and June of 1989. Prior to the interviews, students received a letter from the investigators outlining the purpose of the study. By informing them in advance about the topics to be covered, some students were able to give the topics considerable thought before the interview.

Interviews were conducted by eight people. Seven of the interviewers were members of the College Experiences Study (CES) research team; by the time these interviews were conducted (during the second visit to the institutions), all the CES project staff had acquired extensive interviewing experience. The eighth interviewer, a graduate student in higher education, conducted 16 of the 28 interviews with Stanford students as part of an internship.2

No systematic effort was made to match interviewers and respondents on gender, race, and ethnicity. The interviews occurred in private rooms in campus buildings (e.g., administration buildings, libraries, student unions) that were reserved for this purpose. Interviews ranged in time from 35 minutes to 1 and

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one-half hours; the modal length was about 1 hour. All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim.

Data Analysis

Transcribing interviews required 16 months (April, 1990 through July, 1991). Four people participated in the analysis of interview transcripts. Three were doctoral students in higher education with some training in qualitative research methods. They did not conduct any of the interviews. The fourth person (the author) conducted 21 of the interviews.3

To accomplish the purpose of the study, a two-stage, multimethod data analysis procedure was used. The first stage was inductive and the second deductive. As Reichardt and Cook (1979) argued:

There is no need to choose a research method on the basis of a traditional paradigmatic stance. Nor is there any reason to pick between the two polar opposite paradigms. . . There is every reason (at least in logic) to use them together to satisfy the demands of. . .research in the most efficacious manner possible, (p. 27)

The inductive stage began by examining what respondents said were— for them—important benefits of attending college that they associated with out-of-class experiences. The interview transcripts were analyzed using a five-phase iterative procedure. First, each transcript was reviewed by one of the doctoral students who assigned an identification number to the transcript including the institution, a student identification number, and the student's age, sex, and ethnicity. This initial reading of the transcripts yielded a set of eight categories reflecting outcomes mentioned by the participants (Miles & Huberman, 1984). Second, another reader analyzed several dozen transcripts and, based on her suggestions, the initial set of outcome themes was revised and expanded to 10 categories. Third, a transcript was selected which was read by all four readers to determine how well these themes accommodated the student-reported outcomes contained in this transcript. This revised set of themes was then discussed at some length by the four readers. The product of these discussions was a taxonomy comprised of 13 outcome categories. Fourth, four additional transcripts were selected; each reader read a copy of all four. The experience of coding these transcripts was discussed, and several minor revisions were made to the taxonomy including the addition of the miscellaneous ' 'other" category. Finally, all 149 transcripts were read and coded by the author, which included assigning outcome category numbers in the margin of the transcript next to relevant passages. Thus, a single ''human instrument" was responsible for analyzing and interpreting all the data, thereby avoiding potential interrater reliability problems.

The second stage of data analysis was deductive. As Miles and Huberman (1984) suggested, one can more quickly analyze massive amounts of data in the form of words by transforming categories of information into numbers; in addition, numbers can protect against investigator bias, thus ensuring intellectual honesty. Following Miles and Huberman, after the transcripts were coded, quantitative data analysis procedures were used to identify patterns in the data

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that had empirical and conceptual integrity, not to test hypotheses about out-of-class experiences and student learning.

Measures of central tendency were computed for each outcome category. A factor analysis was performed to determine whether the outcome categories (excluding the miscellaneous ''other" category) could be reduced to a more wieldy number of outcome domains. Using the factor solution, £-tests and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to determine if the outcomes mentioned by students differed by certain student background characteristics (age, sex, ethnicity) and institutional size (large = 5,000 or more undergraduates, which included Iowa State, Louisville, Miami, Stanford, UC Davis, and Wichita State; small = fewer than 5,000 undergraduates, which included Berea, Earlham, Evergreen State, Grinnell, Mount Holyoke, and Xavier); control (public = Evergreen State, Iowa State, Louisville, Miami, UC Davis, Wichita State; private = Berea, Earlham, Grinnell, Mount Holyoke, Stanford, Xavier), and mission (liberal arts = Berea, Earlham, Evergreen State, Grinnell, Mount Holyoke, Xavier; metropolitan = Louisville, Wichita State; comprehensive = Iowa State, Miami, Stanford, UC Davis).

Results

The presentation of the results is divided into three sections. The first section presents the taxonomy of outcomes and the five outcome domains produced by the factor analysis. In the second section, the words of selected participants describe many of the changes that occurred during college and the areas of learning considered to be important to the students themselves. Finally, differences in outcomes by student and institutional characteristics are presented.

Outcomes Taxonomy

The inductive analysis of the transcribed ' Voices" of respondents yielded 14 categories of learning and personal development (Table 1). Eight outcomes were mentioned at least once by 60% of the respondents. They were, in order of frequency mentioned: social competence (84%), reflective thought (72%), altruism (70%), autonomy (66%), knowledge acquisition (65%), confidence (63%), practical competence (62%), and self-awareness (60%) (Table 2). Outcomes mentioned least often included aesthetic appreciation (10%), vocational competence (16%), and knowledge application (25%).

The factor analysis (Table 3) reduced the 13 outcome categories (excluding the miscellaneous ''other" category) to five factors or outcome domains: Personal Competence (self-awareness + autonomy + confidence + social competence + sense of purpose); Cognitive Complexity (reflective judgment + application of knowledge); Knowledge and Academic Skills (knowledge + academic skills); Practical Competence (practical competence + vocational competence); and Altruism and Estheticism (altruism + estheticism).

In Their Own Words

In this section, the voices of students illustrate what they learned and how they changed during college for each of the five outcome domains produced by the

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Table 1 Taxonomy of Outcomes Reported by Seniors

1. Self-awareness (includes self-examination, spirituality) 2. Autonomy and self-directedness (includes decision making, taking initiative and

responsibility for one's own affairs and learning, movement from dependent to independent thinking)

3. Confidence and self-worth (includes esteem, self-respect) 4. Altruism (includes interest in the welfare of others, awareness of and empathy and

respect for needs of others, tolerance and acceptance of people from racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds different from one's own)

5. Reflective thought (includes critical thinking, ability to synthesize information and experiences, seeing connections between thinking and experiences, seeing different points of view, examining one's own thinking)

6. Social competence (includes capacity for intimacy, working with others, teamwork, leadership, dealing with others, assertiveness, flexibility, public speaking, communication, patience)

7. Practical competence (includes organizational skills such as time management, budgeting, dealing with systems and bureaucracies)

8. Knowledge acquisition (includes academic and course-related learning, content mastery)

9. Academic skills (includes learning how to study, to write, to conduct independent research)

10. Application of knowledge (includes relating theory to practice and using skills learned in the classroom, laboratory, library, and so on in other areas of life, such as using political science theory and research methods when working in a law office)

11. Esthetic appreciation (includes appreciation for cultural matters as in the arts, literature, theatre, esthetic qualities of nature)

12. Vocational competence (includes acquiring attitudes, behaviors, and skills related to post-college employment)

13. Sense of purpose (includes clarifying life goals and the work one will do after college, sometimes by discovering what one is not well suited to do)

14. "Other" (includes such concepts as movement from conservative to liberal attitudes or vice versa, change in physical features, growing apart from a spouse, and so on)

Note. N = 149.

factor analysis. Personal Competence. Five outcome categories comprise this domain: self-

awareness, autonomy, confidence, social competence, and sense of purpose. (See Table 3.)

A Hispanic student at UC Davis said:

I've changed a lot. People notice it, too. They say, 'You act a lot more older, a lot more mature than when you left.' I say, 'Yeah, I've noticed

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Table 2 Standard Deviations of the Number of Times an Outcome C

Numb

Category M SD 0 1

Self-awareness Autonomy Confidence Altruism Reflective thought Social competence Practical competence Knowledge acquisition Knowledge application Academic skills Esthetic appreciation Vocational competence Sense of purpose Other

1.07 1.33 1.20 1.53 1.64 1.83 1.13 1.11 0.38 0.57 0.15 0.27 0.60 0.56

1.19 1.37 1.29 1.51 1.53 1.37 1.28 1.19 0.75 0.78 0.54 0.78 1.03 0.76

40 34 37 30 28 16 38 35 75 59 90 84 59 58

33 29 32 27 24 28 31 38 15 27

7 11 28 31

1 1 1 1 2 3 2 1

1

1

Note: n = 149. Expressed in percentages of respondents who mentioned the outcome.



Table 3 Factor Analysis of Outcomes Reported by Seniors to Be Associa

Practical Personal Outcomes competence competence

Self-awareness Autonomy Confidence Altruism Reflective thought Social competence Practical competence Knowledge acquisition Knowledge application Academic skills Aesthetic appreciation Vocational competence Sense of purpose

Eigenvalue Proportion of variance

Total variance accounted for:

- . 1 3 .10

- . 1 6 - . 1 0 - . 1 5

.08

.46*

.19

.14 - . 1 0

.24

.50*

.04

2.30 17.7 55.7

.32*

.43*

.38*

.05

.06

.38* - . 0 1 - . 0 4 * - . 0 1 - . 0 9 - . 2 7 - . 0 4

.28*

1.44 11.0

Note. N = 149. 'Indicates those outcomes loading on the respective factor.

Factor mat (Varimax rot

Cognitive Kn complexity aca

.10

.20 - . 0 4

.03

.51* - . 1 5

.02

.07

.53* - . 1 1 - . 0 5 - . 0 3 - . 3 1

1.27 9.8



Kuh

that, too'. . . When I saw my high school friends last summer, they were still doing the same things we used to do in high school. I didn't want to seem snotty, but what they were doing was really boring to me. . . They hadn't changed. . . That's what really shocked me. . . I've learned a lot about myself and grown a lot.

The definition of self that undergirds the development of personal competence was captured by a Mount Holyoke student:

I became more aware of who I am. By going to a women's college you are forced directly or indirectly to take account of who you are. . . First I'm Susan and then second I'm Susan a woman, and then also a Black woman. Those have different meanings for me and I'm trying to figure them out. So I think Mount Holyoke was responsible for making me realize there are so many different parts of myself.

A Mexican American woman at Evergreen said:

I had a teacher once point at me and say, The dark one,' meaning she wanted me to come [to her], and me just kind of shrugging my shoulders and just, well, 'Yeah, that's me.' Now, I look back and see that I should have called her on that. I should have said, 'Hey, you could have said the person with curly hair. You could have said the person with the blue shirt. You could have identified me any other way, but to first identify me with color, that makes me uncomfortable.' To hold people accountable, I've become more confident in doing this.

She continued:

I'm learning all along, all this time. I'm learning about me. I'm learning about my cultural heritage as well as I'm interacting with other groups, other ethnic groups, Native Americans, and African Americans. So, I'm learning a whole lot about people, these cultural roots, where I fit in the bigger picture. . .I've experienced racism for the first time and was validated in that. To say, 'Yeah, yes, of course, you have.' All these years it just wasn't your imagination; it was really happening. . . Somehow, you don't know when and you don't really quite know how, but somehow you're different.

Experiencing the "imposter syndrome" (i.e., occasional feelings of incompetence when surrounded by bright, inquisitive people; Saufley, Cowan, & Blake, 1983) was not uncommon. But students generally did not find such feelings to be debilitating or to inhibit their personal development. An Xavier student said:

When I came here, even though I had done very well in high school and went to one of the best high schools in the city, I still wasn't sure whether what I was doing was good enough. I thought maybe I had slipped through the cracks and they didn't know that I wasn't as bright

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In Their Own Words

as they thought. Now, I still sometimes feel that way, but I have more confidence in myself. I know that I can do anything.

In the words of a Stanford woman:

I was very insecure when I came here. I was scared because I didn't know anybody here, but I was also insecure because you're learning about yourself. I was pretty good about hiding it. Could I make friends in a new place?. . .I've gotten really confident in learning how to meet people.

A Grinnell student described this as a shift from

cockiness to confidence... I was "great" when I came out of high school. I was very cocky, arrogant as well. I have changed a lot.

A senior at Xavier described her growing sense of independence and autonomy:

I've been on my own. This has taught me a lot of responsibility. . .1 paid for my apartment. . . and education through loans, because I decided to be on my o w n . . . I decided that my parents couldn't do it although I had them if I needed [them] to fall back on. And [doing it on my own] has allowed a greater sense of worth. And you appreciate everything more because you know how hard you had to work for it.

A Berea student talked about personal competence in terms of spiritual development:

I've done a massive amount of growing in many ways. Spiritually just being exposed to many different people from different religious backgrounds... I don't think [now] that people have to be religious to be spiritual and that's been good for me, to be exposed to people who are not religious and are very spiritual beings, people who are not Christians [but] who are more "Christian" than many others.

A Stanford student achieved a better understanding of her purpose in life by discovering what not to do:

The loans I had to pay back have been a pressure from my freshman year. . . I felt that I had to do something, major in something that was going to make money so I could pay for my education. I now laugh when I think back to that, but I'm very glad I didn't go the premed route . . . I also started seeing that I really didn't enjoy chemistry classes, didn't want to take physics, didn't enjoy calculus, so then it probably wasn't the right road for me.

The development of personal competence can be particularly challenging for athletes:

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When I came to Iowa State I was somebody that people always looked up to. When I got here it was kind of like I was thrown back down to the floor and it was like, 'Now is your chance. You've got to prove to yourself and prove to others that you can do it.' In the first couple of months I was like an outcast.

This, too, was a success story as the interview continued:

I grew so much as a person. I built on that, and I think academically I've become more knowledgeable as far as what I've learned, but I think also I've learned what I want to do with my life.

The words of another Iowa State senior echoed what many participants said they gained from attending college:

My parents always stressed that college isn't all about just school work. It's about being with people too, because when you get out into the real world it's about being with people. You've got to know what you are doing, but it's about being with people.

Cognitive Complexity. This outcome domain includes reflective thought (e.g., critical thinking, ability to examine different points of view) and knowledge application (e.g., ability to relate theory to practice and to use information presented in one class to other classes or to other areas of life). (See Tables 1 and 3.)

A woman from Mount Holyoke College described how her thinking changed:

I try to wait, you know, see both sides more so than I used to, and not place myself on either until I know all of the facts, all of what's going on. That's one thing I didn't do before I came here.

An African-American male at Grinnell told us, "When I got back after my freshman year, I started to c h a n g e . . . I was more open minded." A Berea student described his increased capacity for critical thinking:

The people I met, the teachers I had, changed my whole way of thinking. Not that I don't want to be successful financially. Sure, I go to school for four years and get a degree, but to think, and by think I mean not just go with what everybody says, but to be able to question things critically on my own. So in that way, my whole idea of success and what I wanted kind of changed.

A 29-year-old male student at Wichita State told us:

Ten years ago I would have said that I'm the type of person that the world owes me a living. "I'm here. Give it to me." I didn't do very well in high school. I had a C average. I lived in Florida during my junior and senior year, and fifth and sixth period the surf was up, so I didn't spend a lot of time at school. . . but I did graduate. . . Over the semesters that I've been here my need for intellectual stimulation has just sky-

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rocketed. I have to have it; it's almost like an addiction... I have to keep my mind active.

Another Wichita State student, this one a 37-year-old woman, said:

I'm a much more questioning person... I don't accept just anything without saying, "Well, that could be true or it may not," and I'd have to research that for myself or talk to other people. I'm less likely to just take one person's opinion or even the department's opinion than I would 5 years ago.

An Earlham senior demonstrated a capacity to explore alternative points of view:

Earlham taught me how to look at things in many different ways and to see how things work and how things work out, and who has a part in that and what all the factors are. I see things now critically, not destructively. You realize that in every decision there is some sense of goodness. I mean every decision is made so that something good will come of it, maybe not for everyone but for the most part, every decision that's made is made on a basis of getting the best or getting the most of what's possible. The problem is that those things don't always satisfy every party involved. So you have to look at it and realize which parties are being satisfied and w h y . . . So you have to get a more definite idea of when certain ideas apply and where those ideas apply. It's not a matter of learning what your professor thinks and then writing that down because that's not learning at all. So these things we learn in class we can apply to all aspects of our lives, to all sorts of circumstances.

In a similar vein, a Stanford senior reflected:

I am constantly challenged to think here about what I believe and what I want. . . My thinking is more rigorous. When I look at issues and things 1 think I've become a more critical thinker. All those things that were told to me the day I arrived I think are true. Stanford does make you a better thinker.

Knowledge and Academic Skills. In this section, students reflect on the importance of the knowledge and skills they obtained during college, both in and outside of class. (See Tables 1 and 3.)

A Berea student talked about how his academic skills improved:

One of my jobs [every student at Berea is required to "labor" or work at the College] really opened my skills. I feel like I have good library research skills, laboratory research skills, writing skills. [Being at Berea] really improved my writing and reading skills.

An African-American student at Mount Holyoke told us:

We used to write papers for this [Religion and Social Change] professor, and he was so hard on our papers. I said to him, "I can't believe you're

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marking up my papers like that." He said, "You're a really good writer." He was very encouraging... He felt that the work I was doing was publishable.

A 31-year-old male student at Evergreen State said:

My time here has been pretty much devoted to academics. . . environmental studies, environmental sciences. I'm pursuing independent film and video work this quarter. . . because I think it's a very important communication tool. In one [core program]... I did a 60-page research paper with 35 literature sources. . . They were subjects that I was very interested in and . . . so I went into more depth.

A Grinnell student reflected:

As a result of taking the Introduction to Women's Studies class, I became very, very much aware of the feminist movement. I went to Washington, DC, on a march. I was the only male [who went from Grinnell]. A lot of my interest is linked to the course because I had no idea about a lot of these issues. I mean, I've always looked for equality. I've always thought that equality was natural, you know, the way it should be. But I never understood why it was any other way and why it was a male-dominated society.

Another Grinnell student talked about the development of academic skills:

I have written maybe 100 papers here. . . Learning how to structure my thoughts was very important. I almost failed one class; I got a D in it because the prof knew I was trying so hard. That class taught me a lot about how to structure and organize my thinking.

Practical Competence. This domain reflects an enhanced capacity to manage one's personal affairs (e.g., time management, balancing a checkbook), to be economically self-sufficient, and to contribute to society through, among other ways, involvement in community affairs. (See Tables 1 and 3.)

A Xavier student spoke of the importance of learning how to cope beyond the campus:

I have always had a sense of independence, but not to the extent where I could leave home. And after going to New York [for an internship], I learned that I could do it—that I could go out and make my own friends, and find places that suited me, get involved in the community, learn different things about another place outside New Orleans. That is very important because I knew if I wanted to be successful in my career, then traveling would have to be a big part of my life and I would have to move to a different city.

An important practical competency a Stanford senior described was negotiating "the system" by learning how the institution worked or, as they say at Stanford, learning how to play "the game":

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One way in which I'm different now is that I've learned how to play "the game" very well . . . I just began to realize how the wheels of Stanford worked. I didn't know how, I just watched for a while—other people getting money for activities [like the dorm sponsoring a Little League Team]. Now I really know how to play "the game": how to play the money game, how to play the power game, how to play the position game, how to just thank the right people, to ask favors of the right people, when it's right, and ask them what is right, and ask them properly. I just learned that very well here at Stanford.

Even older students talked about the importance of developing practical competencies. A 33-year-old Wichita State student told us:

Time constraints were becoming severe. I had too many meetings to attend. Now I'm able to schedule those so that I don't lose any time with my daughter because she's number one [in priorities]. School is number two. Work is number three and I run a poor number four! But the extracurricular is still an important part of the educational process. You're learning how to lead. You're learning how to be in charge. You're learning how to work with people and to compromise and sometimes to back off.

And an older student at Evergreen said:

There is so much you have to learn, and not all of it is in books. . . how to talk with people and how to negotiate contracts, how to do budget proposals, how to ask for funding. I learned to manage a $40 thousand budget—not in my academic program, outside of my academics. I learned how to produce an event. I learned about lighting. . . about the media. . . about the whole process of getting a speaker to come to campus from outside of the state.

Altruism and Estheticism. This outcome domain represents an increased sensitivity to the needs of others, learning about and how to work with people different from oneself, and developing an appreciation for the esthetic qualities of life and the natural world. (See Tables 1 and 3.)

A Mount Holyoke student said:

Mount Holyoke, unlike a lot of colleges, stresses community service. I had never been involved [in that] before coming here . . . As a result, I'm more sensitive to the differences of people from different cultures, from different political perspectives, people who have different lifestyles than my own. You learn to accept them and you learn from their experiences.

An international student at Berea spoke of the importance of meeting dif-nt tvoes of oeoole: ferent types of people

[They were] people who I would not have met at home. Africans, South Americans, Europeans, Asians from all parts of Asia, and it just makes you more tolerant of differences. . . makes you more broad-minded....

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What I learned from that whole experience is that people are all different, but basically we are—at the same time—all very much the same.

The "Xavier Way," to give back to the community, is expressed in the words of one senior:

Buy a Mercedes? I couldn't. That is not me. I would have to donate money to some foundation, or to Xavier, or somewhere. I couldn't keep it all to myself like some people [who] make lots of money and don't participate in the community. I am a big believer of giving back because I have grown up and seen other Blacks succeed and just abandon the whole Black community, and I think that is wrong.

An Earlham student mentioned in passing how dorm life influenced his views and respect of others:

Small things like playing the music too loud and disturbing other members of the hall can be great lessons in respect and mutual understanding.

A Berea student said:

Since being here I worked with a group of kids in a youth ministry program here on campus... I was the director... It got me into working with kids, you know? Since then, I've started a Big Brother program. The guys [in the dorm] enjoy it because it gets them working together. It's great working with the kids, camping out, seeing them learn from different things.

Finally, a male Stanford senior told us:

I think I've become less enamored with reason and rationality and more interested in feelings and relationships, and that seems really strange to me, but it's t rue . . . . Some of the things that really bother me, the reason they bother me is because they affect the way I feel, not the way I think. When I think about poverty, I think less about whether it's just and unjust and more about how it must be for people who are in it and how painful it must be; I don't think so much in terms of right and wrong and what doesn't make sense, but more so in terms of the actual consequences for people's lives.

1'Other" Changes. Some learning experiences during college did not fit cleanly into these categories. In addition to changes encompassed by the five outcome domains, respondents also talked about some other areas of their lives that were influenced by attending college, such as developing more sophisticated political and social values and changes in physical appearance:

When I first came [to Mount Holyoke] I was very conservative politically. But most of it was based just on not being very aware. . . just kind of going along with whatever. Then I came here and my beliefs and what I took for granted were really challenged.

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In Their Own Words

My first year [at Evergreen] I was more relaxed in my dress. I guess there is a definite influence to dress like a "Greener." When I would go back into Portland, I would go back wearing city clothes. . . For me, having my hair cut short is an example... I didn't do it to look different. I did it more, I guess, to affirm who I was.

Differences by Student and Institutional Characteristics

The final guiding question was whether institutional characteristics and student background characteristics were associated with self-reported outcomes as suggested by Pascarella's (1985) college impact model. Sex was the only background variable that was related to a statistically significant difference in outcomes; compared with women, men reported more changes on Cognitive Complexity (t = 2.10, df = 147, p < .05). An analysis of the two scales that make up this factor, reflective thought and knowledge application, revealed that this difference could be attributed to the latter category; that is, one third of the men compared with 17% of the women mentioned at least once using information from classes in other areas of their life (knowledge application) such as a job or student organization.

All three institutional characteristics (control, size, mission) were related to differences in outcomes. Compared with their counterparts at public universities, students at private institutions were more likely to report changes in Cognitive Complexity (t = 2.00, df = 147, p < .05) and Altruism and Estheticism (t = 3.35, df = 147, p < .001). Students at small colleges were more likely than students at large institutions to mention changes in Cognitive Complexity (t = 2.94, df = 147, p < .01), Knowledge and Academic Skills (t = 2.35, df = 147, p < .05), and Altruism and Estheticism (t = 2.52, df = 147,p < .01). Seniors at liberal arts colleges reported more changes in the domains of Cognitive Complexity, Knowledge and Academic Skills, and Altruism and Estheticism than did students at comprehensive universities and metropolitan universities (Table 4); similarly, students at comprehensive institutions reported more changes in these areas than did their counterparts at metropolitan institutions (Table 4).

Discussion This section is divided into four parts: (a) the contribution of the study to the literature, (b) reflections on using interview data to assess college outcomes, (c) limitations of the study, and (d) thoughts on using quantitative data analysis procedures with qualitative data.

Contribution of the Study

The outcome categories that emerged from the inductive analysis of senior interview transcripts were, for the most part, similar to those developed by others to define and categorize college outcomes (e.g., Bowen, 1977; Ewell, 1984; Feldman & Newcomb, 1969; Lenning, 1976; Micek, Service, & Lee, 1975). For example, compared with the categories used by Pascarella and Terenzini (1991), the only outcomes not mentioned by seniors were those that cannot be determined until after graduation—educational attainment, economic benefits, and

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Table 4 Analysis of Variance of Outcome

Factor Scores by Institutional Missions

Factor

Practical competence

Personal competence

Cognitive complexity

Knowledge and academic skills

Altruism and estheticism

Number of respondents

Liberal arts

M

1.42

6.63

2.52

2.03

2.08

SD

1.97

3.70

2.22

1.78

2.03

65

Comprehensive

M

1.42

5.95

1.87

1.74

1.56

SD

1.51

3.73

1.50

1.52

1.34

55

Metropolitan

M

1.35

4.83

1.14

0.79

1.03

SD

1.45

2.55

1.48

0.86

1.27

29

F-ratio

0.02

2.65

5.90**

6.49**

4.14*

*p< .05, **p< .01. Liberal arts = Berea, Earlham, Evergreen State, Grinnell, Mount Holyoke, and Xavier. Comprehensive = Iowa State, Miami, Stanford, and UC Davis. Metropolitan = Louisville and Wichita State

quality of life after college. Given the focus of the study—learning and personal development associ

ated with out-of-class experiences—it was not surprising that some outcomes, such as academic skills, were mentioned less frequently than other outcomes, such as autonomy and confidence. At the same time, it is disappointing that knowledge application was not mentioned by more than a quarter of the respondents. Collegiate environments offer innumerable opportunities to use information obtained from many courses of study (e.g., political science, psychology, sociology) in dealing with the problems and challenges of daily life. To encourage more knowledge application, faculty could structure assignments that require students to illustrate how they are using class material in other areas of their lives. Institutional agents whose primary work is with students outside the classroom (e.g., student affairs staff, academic advisors) could promote more knowledge application by asking students on a regular basis to apply what they are learning in class to life outside the classroom. Simple illustrations of how this might work are the residence hall director who routinely invites students during casual conversation to share the three or four most important things they learned that week, or the student government advisor who challenges student leaders to apply material from their political science, psychology, and communications classes to their student government role.

One outcome frequently mentioned by participants as important was learn-

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In Their Own Words

ing about and gaining experience with people from different racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds (Altruism and Estheticism). Earlier studies of attitudinal changes during college usually found increased tolerance for racial and ethnic differences (e.g., Clark, Heist, McConnell, Trow, & Yonge, 1972; Hyman & Wright, 1979; Winter, McClelland, & Stewart, 1981), an affective psychological outcome (Astin, 1973). This study suggests that experiences outside the classroom are an important venue where students not only develop an appreciation for people from backgrounds different from their own (the affective psychological outcome), but also cultivate skills that enable them to relate personally to such students (an affective behavioral outcome).

College impact models emphasize the influence of institutional and student characteristics on learning and personal development (Pascafella, 1985; Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991; Tinto, 1987; Weidman, 1989). Institutional control, size, and mission were associated with differences in Cognitive Complexity, Knowledge and Academic Skills, and Altruism and Estheticism. However, in this study sex was the only student characteristic associated with a difference in reported outcomes (Cognitive Complexity). That other student background characteristics were not systematically associated with differences in outcomes may be explained by the nature of the institutions. These institutions shared a number of properties, including cultural assumptions that every student can succeed and that every student is expected to participate fully in the life of the institution (Kuh et al., 1991). These colleges and universities have created something akin to a level playing field, an institutional context wherein student characteristics become neutral factors in terms of their learning and personal development (Kuh & Vesper, 1992).

Pascarella and Terenzini (1991) found that within-college differences (i.e., what a student does in college) were greater than between-college differences (i.e., type of institution attended). Few studies compared the effects of attending specific institutions on college impact, such as assessments of gains of students attending Indiana University, Ball State University, and Hanover College. Therefore, whether individual institutions have distinctive impacts on their students is not known because any differences in student outcomes that may be associated with salience and character of institutional mission become obfuscated by aggregating data from a number of institutions. For example, do students at colleges such as Berea, Earlham, and Grinnell, where the institutional mission emphasizes service to others, report patterns of outcomes that differ from those of their counterparts at other colleges and universities that do not emphasize service in their missions? Of course, institutions with salient service-oriented missions attract many students with humanitarian interests. Therefore, efforts to examine the relationship between institutional mission and student outcomes must attempt to estimate the relative contributions of the institutional environment and students' pre-college predictions to changes compatible with those valued by the institution's mission and philosophy. The contextual properties of these 12 colleges and universities differed in myriad, subtle ways that may influence student learning (Kuh et al., 1991), a point to which we shall return in the "Limitations" section.

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Using Interviews to Assess Outcomes

The words of seniors describing the role of out-of-class experiences to their learning and development during college are compelling evidence of the value of using interviews to assess the impact of college on students. At the same time, using unstructured interviews to better understand what happens to students is not without potential pitfalls.

The quality of the information obtained from interviews is a function of the respondent's capacity to reflect on and discuss the topics under investigation and the interviewer's skill in creating the conditions which encourage the respondent to talk freely. Many seniors interviewed for this study spoke with clarity and precision about how they benefitted from out-of-class experiences. Others, when asked to reflect on changes associated with experiences outside the classroom, invariably used illustrations from both in-class and out-of-class experiences. In other instances, students described a seamlessness between learning in and out of the classroom, suggesting that the boundaries between academics and student life beyond the classroom—often perceived by faculty and administrators to be real—were blurred so as to be indistinguishable to students. Still others were not very articulate in talking about how or whether they had changed during college. The best example is a Rhodes Scholar who, during the course of a 75-minute interview, was asked three times to describe how he had changed. Each time, however, he took the conversation in other directions. In all likelihood, this student—who had achieved national honors and a spate of institutional recognitions—benefitted more from the undergraduate experience than his interview transcript revealed.

Finally, another plausible explanation for variation in the richness of interviews is the nature of a student's experiences in college. Some respondents may not have learned or changed very much as a result of experiences outside the classroom. Recall that seniors at small colleges with liberal arts missions were more likely to report changes in Cognitive Complexity, Knowledge and Academic Skills, and Altruism and Estheticism. Small classes and dorms place a greater obligation on students to actively participate; therefore, students at small colleges may have more opportunities to engage in activities—both in and out of the classroom—that require reflection and application of knowledge and skills (Barker, 1968; Chickering, 1969); thus, they have more practice in expressing themselves orally. At the same time, it may be that students who choose to attend small colleges are predisposed to such behavior and that these apparent differences in outcomes are a function of college recruitment, and not college impact (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991).

Limitations

This study has several limitations. The first, and perhaps most important, is the nature of the institutions from which participants were selected. These colleges and universities were known to provide high quality out-of-class learning opportunities. Thus, it is possible that the range and degree of changes reported by students in this study may be richer than those of students at other institu-

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tions. Indeed, comparative analyses of College Student Experience Questionnaire (Pace, 1987) data indicated that students from these 12 institutions were more involved in their education (i.e., expended greater effort in their studies and educationally purposeful out-of-class activities) and benefitted more than their counterparts at other institutions (Kuh et al., 1991; Kuh & Vesper, 1992). Thus, the special qualities of these colleges and universities should be considered when determining the transferability of these findings.

Although these institutions are similar in that they provide rich out-of-class learning environments, they differed—as mentioned earlier—in other ways that influence student learning. More information about the contextual conditions of these colleges would provide a framework within which to interpret students' experiences and explain, perhaps, why what appear to be similar experiences and outcomes differ qualitatively. One example must suffice.

All of the quotations from students at The Evergreen State University mention their program of study. This may seem out of place in a paper focused on out-of-class experiences, unless one is familiar with the Evegreen ethos. At this college, many students have difficulty distinguishing between in-class and out-of-class learning. During our first visit to this campus, before we began interviewing for this study, we discovered that students viewed the terms, "in class" and "out of class" as irrelevant. At Evergreen, learning and personal development is a 24-hour-a-day activity, an expectation reinforced by an academic program that is markedly different from the traditional curriculum in which students select majors and take four or five courses a semester. Evergreen students ("junior learners" in the vernacular of that campus) match up with faculty ("senior learners") and form groups of 20 to 40 or so to study some topic in depth from an interdisciplinary perspective for a few months to, on occasion, a year. For many students, these groups, called "Programs," constitute one's primary academic and affinity groups. That is, the Program is the college experience, and to ask students to compartmentalize their learning experiences contradicts the mission of the institution and makes no sense to students. Hence, an understanding of the contextual conditions of these institutions would allow additional interpretations of these data.

Another limitation is the nature of the data—student reports of what happened to them since coming to college. Self-report data have been found to be moderately correlated (r = .25 to r = .65) with objective measures of knowledge acquisition (Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991). Nonetheless, memories are selective, and it is possible that students failed to mention certain changes. Recall could have been prompted by the use of a structured protocol based on an existing taxonomy of outcomes, such as Lenning (1976) or Micek, Service, and Lee (1975): This approach was rejected because it was incompatible with the phenomenological interview method. However, if respondents could have reviewed a verbatim transcript, or summary of their comments, they might have added other changes (Kvale, 1983). Therefore, the data reported in this paper almost certainly underestimate the benefits students derive from attending college in general and from out-of-class experiences in particular.

Finally, multiple investigators were needed to interview students at a dozen

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institutions in different regions of the country. Although all research team members were skilled in interviewing techniques, some were more successful than others in getting students to talk about the impact of out-of-class experiences on their learning and personal development.

A Note on Using Quantitative Data Analysis Procedures With Qualitative Data

The appropriateness of mixing quantitative and qualitative methods is the subject of continuing debate (Howe, 1988; Jick, 1979; Smith & Heshusius, 1986). The issues are complicated and cannot be resolved here; rather, the purpose here is to illustrate an important tradeoff associated with being ''shamelessly eclectic" (Rossman & Wilson, 1991) in mixing methods: efficiency versus investigator influence. As mentioned earlier, employing quantitative procedures allows the researcher to more quickly identify patterns in large amounts of information (Miles & Huberman, 1984). However, using quantitative data analysis procedures limits the investigator's capacity to understand the nature, meaning, and impact of the information, the natural by-product of joining personal interpretations as one analyzes the data inductively (Peshkin, 1988).

This study took a middle road in that many weeks were devoted to the inductive analysis of more than 12 dozen interviews prior to employing quantitative techniques to distill patterns in the data. These procedures (e.g., factor analysis, ANOVA) allowed the researcher to classify the information in ways (e.g., by institutional type) that would have required substantially more time using the inductive approach exclusively.

Conclusions This study provides a contemporary view of the changes students attributed to out-of-class experiences. Based on their "voices," four conclusions about student learning and personal development associated with out-of-class experiences are warranted.

First, consistent with earlier studies (e.g., Wilson, 1966), experiences beyond the classroom made substantial contributions to student learning and personal development. All students reported personally meaningful changes in one or more areas considered to be important outcomes of college (e.g., interpersonal and practical competence, critical thinking). The relationships among these outcomes were complex, suggesting cumulative and mutually shaping effects of knowledge, and enhanced capacity for critical thinking, personal reflection, competence, and self-direction. With all the attention given to outcomes assessment (Ewell, 1991), it is disappointing that the contributions of out-of-class experiences to learning and personal development have received so little attention, particularly given that students attach so much importance to such experiences.

Second, knowledge acquisition and academic skills were more frequently associated with classroom, laboratory, and studio activities than with out-of-class experiences. When talking about how they had changed during college many students mentioned skill areas such as writing and knowledge about specific subjects. The quotations illustrating this outcome domain suggest that stu-

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In Their Own Words

dents view the classroom as the primary source of these changes. At the same time, although students attributed gains in knowledge to classroom assignments and experiences, life outside the classroom provided ample opportunities to test the value and worth of these ideas and skills.

Third, student background characteristics were, for the most part, unrelated to the learning and personal development outcomes they considered important. The kinds and degree of changes reported by seniors in this study were similar, regardless of age and ethnicity. It is reassuring to know that the benefits associated with attending college reported by "new majority students" (i.e., students of color and those who are over the age of 23, attend college part time, live off campus, have families, or work more than 20 hours a week; Ehrlich, 1991) did not differ from those of traditional age and white students. The lone difference associated with sex regarding application of knowledge is a reminder that collegiate climates for learning often are less empowering for women than for men. If women are taken seriously in and out of the classroom by faculty and administrators, perhaps they will be encouraged to the same extent as their male counterparts to apply what they are learning.

Finally, the type of institution attended was related to differences in the frequency with which certain outcomes were mentioned. For example, students at the smaller colleges with a liberal arts mission more frequently reported changes in intellectual and aesthetic areas. To what degree pre-college characteristics of students contribute to these differences cannot be determined from this study. However, others have argued that a salient, consistently articulated mission focuses student effort (Chickering, 1969; Keeton, 1971). To the extent that this is the case of these colleges, the results of this study affirm Bowen's (1977) conclusion that large size does not necessarily offer educational advantages.

There is more to discover about the contributions of out-of-class experiences to student learning and personal development. For example, studies that attempt to link various out-of-class experiences (e.g., voluntarism, student government, on-campus job) with specific outcomes would be useful to institutional decisionmakers responsible for weighing the merits of allocating resources to such activities. Because many of the benefits of college attendance seem to persist well beyond graduation, it would be instructive to examine the relationships between involvement in out-of-class activities and the long-term effects of college. The words of a senior from The Evergreen State College convey a thought consistent with this last point:

My educational experience here, it's been more like preparing for my journey. [College] has been a journey within itself, but it's more a preparation for my real journey.

Notes

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, April 1992.

'The research reported in this paper was funded in part by grants from The Lilly Endowment, Inc., the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, and the Education Division of the Marriott Corporation. However, any endorsement by these agencies of the findings presented here should not be inferred.

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Kuh 2I gratefully acknowledge the splendid work of collaborators on the College Experi

ences Study. Without them, the information on which this paper is based could not have been gathered: Rosalind Andreas, Herman Blake, James Lyons, Lee Krehbiel, Kathleen MacKay, John Schuh, Carney Strange, and Elizabeth Whitt. Also Jeff McCollough, while he was a graduate student at Indiana University, did an internship at Stanford (his alma mater), part of which included interviewing Stanford seniors.

3The contributions of Caitlin Anderson, James Arnold, and John Downey, all doctoral students in higher education at Indiana University, were essential to completing this project. They played key roles in developing the outcomes taxonomy distilled from the interview transcripts and made many helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Special thanks also are due to Nick Vesper of Indiana University who cheerfully, skillfully, and in a most timely fashion, performed the computer analysis of outcomes data. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the helpful comments of John Centra and Elizabeth Whitt on an earlier version of this paper and the suggestions of the anonymous reviewers and John Rury.

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Received June 11, 1992 Revision received September 7, 1992

Accepted October 7,1992

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Documents

In Their Own Words: What Students Learn Outside the Classroom